Holy Crap. Old School RPG-ing!






















Wow. That’s all I have to say about my initial experience of Dragon Quest VIII. The Wife looked down kindly upon me yesterday and allowed me to get it.

For the first time in years, I got my ass handed to me in an RPG, and it was for reasons that I had no longer come to expect from modern RPGs.

The game doesn’t hold your hand. I haven’t been beaten around this badly in the opening hours of an RPG since I first booted up Final Fantasy VI back in the early 90′s and figured I could waltz through the opening town without worrying about healing. I was surprised. But it was a pleasant surprise. This is going to keep me busy for a good long while.

For those of you that jumped on the console bandwagon in more recent years with the Playstation, there was a time when Square-Enix was just Square, and they weren’t the uncontested masters of the RPG genre on consoles. There was in fact a time when there was a separate company called Enix, and their Dragon Quest series (In North American shores called Dragon Warrior for complex licensing reasons that are no longer an issue) rivalled the Final Fantasy series for complexity and fun. After a while Square realized “If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em,” and so one merger later, Square-Enix was formed, and the Dragon Quest series, formerly their fiercest competition, was now another money making franchise they were proud to support rather than fear and curse.

I guess from a veteran gamer’s perspective the easy way to sum up Dragon Quest VIII is that it’s a very nearly perfect evolution of the “traditional” RPG. The combat is turn-based, but simple. There are still weapon shops, armor shops, item shops, inns and even taverns that you can visit in each town. And if you do not take the time to patiently level your characters up and get them decent weapons, you will simply DIE. As I mentioned earlier, the opening mission, “Get my crystal ball from a cave!” initially seemed like it would be a cake-walk, so I went out, found the cave and promptly died within minutes of entering. The reason why? Because I was level, freakin’ ONE, and that’s amazingly weak.

The other thing I like about the game so far is the humor. It’s been a long, long, loooooong time since I played an RPG that didn’t take a riff from Square’s Final Fantasy series and was all sturm und drang and personal loss, and people sacrificing themselves for love or honor. This game actually has bright, colorful, over the top comical characters and I can’t believe how much of a breath of fresh air it is. The voice acting is also suitably comic, with British, Romanian and other accents being played to the hilt.

All in all, I’d say if you’re looking for a “traditional” RPG that’s been perfected for the current generation of consoles, this is IT. But it’s not easy. And if you’re looking for a fun, funny RPG, this is also it, but it means the random battles and power-leveling that old fashioned RPGs are known for. You’ve been warned.